Just A Little Burn
by AndSheWasBeautiful
Summary: He is there, shining and glistening and beautiful just like those damned razors of his - with not a question, not a sympathetic gesture. A statement. But, he acknowledged you. Sweenett.
1. To Love

_No I don't believe you  
>When you say don't come around here no more<br>No I don't believe you  
>When you say you don't need me anymore<br>So don't pretend to  
>Not love me at all<em>

_I don't mind it_  
><em>I still don't mind at all<em>  
><em>Its like one of those bad dreams<em>  
><em>When you just can't wake up<em>  
><em>Its like you've given up<em>  
><em>You've had enough<em>  
><em>But I want more<em>  
><em>No I won't stop<em>  
><em>Because I just know<em>  
><em>You'll come around<em>  
><em>Right?<em>

_Pink – I Don't Believe You_

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><p>There's flour on your dress, egg clogging up scarlet curls atop your head, dough and dirt engrained in the crevices on your hands and underneath your nails as you work. You knead and spread and chop the dough and spread and tuck and fork the dough before sliding it into your tiny oven, soot and slime coming away on your fingers and you stand and gaze upwards for a moment.<p>

Only a moment.

That's all you will allow yourself, you say sternly again and again. A peek, a glance and a wink upwards and you tell yourself quiet Nellie! Those were secret... no one'll ever know. He'll never know, bet he don't even care – he's an ungrateful sod, he is. Don't even care your poor bones is aching slaving away for him, always for him, only for him.

Take it back; take it back, silly girl. You know you don't mean that. Never will, mind.

He told you to get out and not return this morning, didn't he? Yelled it like a monster, a demon, a demon barber bent on revenge – and he hurt your feelings, poor Nellie. He don't know what it's like being all cooped up and_ not_ liking it. You're certain if you gave him the choice he'd never leave the filthy confines of that room, always a-watching from that bloody window of his, praying to a God he thought had forsaken him that that bloody Turpin would come a-wandering round to the shop for a quick and close... shave.

You don't believe him, do you Nellie, silly girl?

No, course he don't mean it when he tells you to get lost, to leave him, not to return... when he tells you he'll strike you the next time you show yourself off to a male customer like that again, bad for business that is, being associated with such lark.

He don't mean it – you don't believe him, do you Nellie girl?

You don't mind it either – just his way of showing he cares. Or... something like that anyway. For he's a complicated man, he is. Never was easy to read, always something lurking underneath, so mysterious and alluring, delicious and forbidden-

"_Buggar_!"

You drop the roasting pie to the floor, sucking your aching, blistering, reddened fingers and rush to your cooling dishwater for any refuge from the ache. You slosh water along your front, across the tiles, soaking the pie with suds and dirt. You hiss a curse once more at the ruined pie blaming it for everything... Silly Nellie girl, you was getting carried away with all those bad thoughts about him. A secret smile slithers onto your face as you think of those secret, bad thoughts again and decide they were worth the loss of one filthy little pie.

"Mrs. Lovett."

You jump again, sloshing more water up your arms and tear your fingers from the water, the air biting at their blistering pain. You bite your lip. He is there, shining and glistening and beautiful just like those damned razors of his.

"Awright, love? What're you doin' down 'ere then, ey? Just makin' a few pies, I was, got a good sale t'day from some orphans. Poor buggars prob'ly nicked the tuppence, but I ain't complainin' mind you, any money's good these days, ey, Mr. T? What're you doin' down 'ere again-?"

"Mrs. Lovett."

He silences you with only your name in brisk, hushed, grinding tones, his eyes bitter and dark and cold and so full of that mystery you seek and crave and need.

"Where is my supper?"

You falter at that and your face splits into a grin that would put the sunshine to shame. See, Nellie, he really does need you, he does, after all! Couldn't get by without your delicious hot dinners and a quick chat every evening, a pat of affection here and there-

"Will you stop grinning like a fool and answer my question, Mrs. Lovett?"

You snap up straight, and flatten the front of your dress ignoring the stabbing pain in your fingers.

"This mornin' you was all, 'Don't bovver me for the rest of t'day, woman!'" you recite, watching as his eyes flicker and his forefinger twitches and he shifts half a centimeter to the right, every little, tiny movement echoed a hundred, thousand times in your eyes. He grunts in realization. He tilts his head ever so slightly, inky eyes boring into you and you gasp.

"You've hurt your hand."

Not a question, not a sympathetic gesture.

A statement.

But he acknowledged you.

"Just a little burn, Mr. T, nufin' ta worry 'bout! Now, I'll bring ya y' tea up in two shakes of a-"

He is already gone.

You smile softly and use a dishcloth this time to remove the pie from the oven.

He does care really, don't he Nellie? Mm, yes, you should think so after all you've done, given, sacrificed for him. He just pretends not to love you, don't he, just his pride talking, nothing else. When he threatens you, it's outta jealousy, it is, or else he's keeping you safe. Yes. That must be it, mustn't it?

And as you place the pie and his copper pot of tea on his familiar black tray ready to descend the steps to his abode, you feel your eyes sting harder than your burning finger. And you dab them with your ruined dress, and you sniff wholeheartedly and stick that ridiculous smile on your face even though you know he hates it.

He'd hate to see you cry even more, wouldn't he?

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><p><strong>Thanks for reading (: First attempt at Sweeney ;] Reviews are my lifeblood! (:<strong>


	2. To Weep

You went to the market this morning, didn't you? Wanted to show him that dreadful Eye-talian... Made a right idiot of that Pirelli, he did and you laughed and cheered for him along with the rest of the crowds.

He stood at your side, silent and pale and brooding and everything and anything more than you could ever hope to be. Have. Ever have.

The air is poison, you think. Every choking gasp you take of the smog, decay, death makes you want to buckle over in disgust and retch. He don't even bat an eyelid, but you'd die of shock if he did. Mind, he's probably suffered far worse than a few disagreeable stenches in the market place. You scold yourself silently.

Silly Nellie – must always remember that. No matter what's happened to you, he's gone through so much worse.

Dear Albert having that dreadful accident falling down the stairs to the bake house – it makes you feel sick, like a snake coils in the depths of your belly to know it weren't no dreadful accident. But, in retrospect, you think, he'd only be here causing trouble for you and Mr T and aching from gout, wouldn't he? You shudder and hoist your sleeve up higher, dunking your hand further into the bucket residing beside your old leather boot, feeling warm all over as the water submerges your worn palms and you pull the scrubbing brush from the depths, sloshing more water across your already ruined dress.

And then there was when he got married to Lucy... and when Lucy found out about Johanna. You feel vicious tears sting your eyes and you smile bitterly, softly to yourself as you scrub at the filthy floors.

When he got sent away you wanted to die, didn't you poor little Nellie? But nobody cares about no bloody landlady when there's a wife who can't hardly control floods of tears every time she lifts her head from a pillow. Everyone thought he was guilty anyway – maybe only thought they spared was that the landlady was mad... thinking anything but.

You laugh outwardly at.

Maybe they wasn't so wrong.

The laugh catches sharply in your throat as you go through more atrocities... perhaps the greatest of them all...

All those little babies what you lost. All those little lives that didn't get lived. It's that bloody air you want to drown in that does it, you swear it. Couldn't be you... you want nothing but dozens of them, fighting each other off, snuggling up to you, declaring how you're the best mummy ever...

You don't notice you're crying until a tear hits the grainy wood before your chestnut eyes, becoming lost amongst the mass of soapy water that smothers the floor boards. You bite back a choking sob and try not to think of them. Timothy, Anna, Oscar, Elizabeth... all four of them. You loved those names – your little babies all had those names...

You rub harshly at your eyes with the back of your hands, ignoring the gentle sting the carbolic soap causes within your eyes. You cast your eyes at leisure to the side and gasp violently when you see two midnight hollows boring a hole in your head.

He's been staring at you this whole time from that bloody chair.

A tear you missed slides down your cheek and you hastily scratch at your nose with false cheeriness using every ounce of will, of power, sheer force left in your aching bones to tear your eyes from his and continue about your scrubbing.

Silence lingers, smothering you with its heavy scent and presence and very being and you jerk uncomfortably as you scrub and score. Silence, was never something you exceeded at, eh Nellie? A rare occurrence, as rare as the sun puncturing the smog that layers thick the skies in fact – that he breaks the humid silence with his rumbling tones that send shivers down your bent spine.

"Mrs. Lovett."

"Hm? What's wrong, dearie?" you ask breezily, airily, too brightly, even for you.

You hear his breathing hitch a moment and you dare yourself to throw a glance over your shoulder. You curse your bleeding obsession with him and refuse to give in.

"Why are you sitting on the floor of my shop, crying?"

There is no intonation in his speech. You snort to yourself – weren't no speech. That was words strung together, that was. If he had any inflection , you'd be blown away... mind. Inflection and intonation and other pedantic words sound like something Lucy would have scolded him for and you bite your tongue as all too familiar anger sizzles in your fingertips.

"Weren't crying love! No... no, got soap in me eye's wot 'appened!"

Your heart hammers. He actually noticed... and gave a damn, what's more, to mention it.

"I may suggest otherwise, but I am not stupid, Mrs. Lovett," he says, eyes smouldering and blazing and burning two holes through your shoulders. Your scrubbing pauses.

"Well, look 'oo found 'is sense a'humour. Been lurkin' in there all along, I'd say," you remark, lips twisting coyly as you try to calm your pounding heart. You swear he can hear it just as clear as you. Your tongue darts out to moisten your lips and you manage to convince yourself one sneak look round won't do no harm.

Silly Nellie. You was wrong as always, weren't you?

His skin all chalky and glimmering in stark contrast with hair as black as a raven's wing – that snowy white streak taking prominence that reminds you that he ain't Benjamin no more. You still love him though. Lucy wouldn't have, you tell yourself firmly. You love him still. She wouldn't have.

"How very observant of you," he says, the words sliding off his tongue like the thickest, creamiest butter coating a piece of hot, new bread in one fell swoop. You swallow visibly and shrug. He continues, shocking you even further. "You were crying. Why?"

Your heart flutters in your chest, faster than a little green finch who knows he's about to be snatched up into the jaws of a prowling fox.

"Why? You worried 'bout me Mr T? Gonna comfort me?" You can hardly believe the hushed words as they leave your cracked lips and you watch in rapt fascination as he blinks slowly and deliberately, watching you as carefully.

"If you, Mrs. Lovett, were to begin weeping as you scrubbed the floors of my shop, you who burns her fingers and then refuses to bind them because you'd rather save the gauze for patches, then I would know my life truly has no hope."

You try to take in his every word, try to absorb them into your skin, allow them to permeate your surface.

"So, you're sayin' I'm wot gives you 'ope?" you breathe, scrubbing brush long forgotten to one side. His eyebrows furrow ever so slightly, a ghost of a movement and he jerks his neck slightly, uncomfortably.

"I believe I said if your life has gotten so pathetic you break down and weep, then I shall never be satisfied with merely revenge on Turpin."

He stands with that, swift and graceful and your gaze to falls to his feet in earnest as you long to reach out and graze his presence, even lightly, just so you can remember and picture and dream of him in more tangibility than that which you already do.

His next words are not intended for you, you think as he goes to descend the stairs.

"Companionship, however, is something you give me."

You turn and savagely grasp the scrubbing brush, returning to your chore with more vigour than before. Always a companion, never the one, ain't that it, Nellie? You bite your lip and swear as the burn on your finger aches from the scrubbing and curse Mr Todd to hell, and then rebuke yourself harshly for ever thinking such things about him.

How could you, silly Nellie?

Everything you've been through, he's had a million times worse.

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><p>A HUGE thanks for the response to the last chapter... that's right chapter! Thank you VERYVERYVERY much Spanish Sunrise for the motivating speech, that inspired me to continue on with this little plot bunny. I say inspired when in fact I mean blackmailed... the threat of blood on my hands was not an appealing one (: So yeah. Please, reviews would be delicious. And with every review I get, I think my drive to write gets better and better.<br>Thank you for reading! (:


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